Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Now we can win other seats
LABOUR’S newest West MP said this his victory in the Kingswood by-election paved the way for the party to win seats across the region at the general election.
Damien Egan overturned a majority of more than 11,000 to claim the South Gloucestershire seat.
It puts other West seats such as Swindon, Gloucester and Stroud firmly in its sights after more than a decade in the political wilderness in most of the West.
Outside of Bristol, Labour has experienced little joy at the polls in the region since Tony Blair was leader.
But Mr Egan said that Labour could now certainly win in other places across the South West.
He said: “We have to listen to what the issues are in the area, have solutions, then work really, really hard and talk to people, put in a lot of the legwork, and if you get those things right then hopefully, we have got the ingredients for success.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the result in Kingswood is “fantastic” for his party and “shows people are ready to put their trust in a Labour government”.
“By winning in this Tory stronghold, we can confidently say that Labour is back in the service of working people and we will work tirelessly to deliver for them,” he said.
“To those who have put their trust in us, you can be safe in the knowledge that the Labour Party will deliver on your priorities. Labour will give Britain its future back.”
Mr Egan vowed to repay the trust of voters in the short time he has representing them before the general election.
The by-election was announced at the start of the year after Tory Chris Skidmore resigned, saying he could not support the Government’s decision to offer new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
The result means the Government has now clocked up more by-election defeats in a single parliament than any government since the 1960s.
Mr Egan, who resigned as the mayor of Lewisham in south-east London to contest the seat, won with a majority of 2,501 votes over his nearest rival, the Conservatives’ Sam Bromiley.
The 42-year-old was joined by his husband Yossi Felberbaum at the count.
He received 11,176 votes, while Mr Bromiley got 8,675. Labour won on a swing in the share of the vote of 16.4 percentage points – some way above the 11.4 point swing needed to take the seat from the Tories.
Labour also overturned a Tory majority of more than 18,000 in Wellingborough, dealing a double blow to Rishi Sunak’s hopes of clinging on to power after the next general election.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Egan thanked his family, agent and the Labour activists and volunteers who had campaigned for him. He also thanked the residents and people of Kingswood for their honesty and frankness, and for allowing him to serve the community.
He said: “It’s a trust that I promise to repay, to show you that politics can be different and it can make a difference.”
He attacked the Conservative Government for sucking the hope out of the country and leaving people worse off and paying more for less. He said that the country was at a crossroads, and that people could choose between more managed decline, more chaos, more division under the Tories, or a changed Labour Party that would put people first, ensure a child’s background was not a barrier to their future, and rebuild Britain.
He added: “The work to give Kingswood its future back starts now. Thank you again to everybody for your support.”
Mr Egan later spoke to reporters and said that he felt hugely privileged to win the by-election, and that he did not know how it was going to go on the day. He said that he had a really positive campaign that focused on the issues that were impacting the community, such as the cost-of-living crisis, safety on the streets and the NHS.
He said: “People are paying more and they’re getting less. Usually a government over time would make people better off. This is the first time in British history that people have been left worse off – considerably. Usually people would get healthier and live longer over time; the opposite is true now – life expectancy is going down.”
He said that he had to get working from day one, and that he hoped that residents would see a change before the general election.
Most of the constituency is in the new Bristol North East seat that he will contest at the next election.
He said that the issues that had recently plagued the Labour Party nationally, such as the anti-semitism row in Rochdale and the plans to scrap £28 billion of green funding, did not come up on the doorstep.
He said: “When you’re a candidate you worry about absolutely everything. I was worried about the rain more to be honest. I thought with such heavy rain, people wouldn’t come out to vote.
“The issues that you’re referring to didn’t come up. You don’t get to speak to everybody, so maybe they were on some people’s minds, but they weren’t the main thing that people were asking me about.”
Sir Chris Bryant, a veteran Labour MP who was at the count, praised the party’s stunning victory calling it the “first domino” to topple the Conservative Government.
“We ran a very positive campaign. Damien had a very clear plan for Kingswood and clear things that he wanted to achieve and to fight for: more doctors, more NHS appointments, dentists and glaucoma to be done by opticians, not just in hospitals. All of that is great,” he said.
“The thing that I think dominated the debate was the state of the economy, because people didn’t need to be told on the news this morning that Britain had been in recession for the last six months. They’d known it in their own pockets. People know
that they’re poorer now than they were when Rishi Sunak arrived in Downing Street.
“That’s the thing that kept on coming back to us time and time again, as well as the fact that the Tory party is behaving like a rabble and not like a government.
“190 Tory MPs have been a minister in this Parliament. That is 16 housing ministers, and I could go on with so many other departments and it’s just been chaotic.”
He also criticised the Tories for running a “horrible” campaign that focused on personal attacks and showed a lack of respect for the voters.
“There’s one other thing. I think the Tory Party used to be the party of good manners. They ran a horrible campaign here. When did you ever think you’d have a campaign which is about somebody’s accent? Then tonight, the Tory candidate scuttled out the door the moment it was over. That’s shabby. It’s not good manners, and it doesn’t treat the voters with respect,” he said.
Sir Chris also claimed that the Kingswood result would have implications for the next general election, pointing to Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was present at the count as a GB News reporter, as someone who should be worried.
“I’m not sure whether he’s representing the Conservative Party or GB News. He’s on the list as GB News, not for the party, which is a conflict of interest in my book.
“Fifty per cent of this seat goes into his seat at the general election. He wasn’t winning in those parts. When I was knocking doors in his area, there were people saying to me, ‘I’m voting Labour to get rid of him’ at the next election.
“This was the first domino and there will be other dominoes to topple later this year,” he said.
Reform UK celebrated the 10.35% share of the vote, being the second highest percentage they had ever polled, behind the 13% at the Wellingborough election on the same night.
Rupert Lowe, the former chairman of Southampton Football Club and the candidate for Reform UK in Kingswood, said he was delighted with the result, which he said showed that the voters were unhappy with the way they were being governed by both the Tories and Labour.
The Green Party finished fourth with 1,450 votes and 5.8% of the vote. Their candidate Lorraine Francis said: “I am really, really happy with the actual results. It’s been a really good by-election, and I think it’s shown that people are willing to vote Green.”
Two candidates lost their deposit. They were the Andrew Brown of the Liberal Democrats who finished fifth with 861 votes and 3.5% of votes and Ukip’s Nicholas Wood who finished sixth with 129 votes and 0.5% share.